


Every Day Like This One

by zombiesbecrazy



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Happy Birthday Jason Todd, No editing we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 12:51:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20276203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiesbecrazy/pseuds/zombiesbecrazy
Summary: Four times Jason Todd had the very best birthday





	Every Day Like This One

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Jason! He deserves only good things, so this is all fluff.

Jason didn’t care what the other kids at school said. Pink wasn’t a girl colour and even if it was, it didn’t matter because strawberry was the very best flavour of ice cream.

This was the fancy stuff too. Not the one dollar cone that you could get at McDonald’s or the bucket that they could get at the corner store when it was on sale that was bright neon in colour either. Those were both good, but they weren’t this. No, this was the pale pink that had the chunks of actual strawberries in it and was soft enough to scoop perfectly, and cold enough to maintain its shape for just a little bit longer before starting to melt into a delicious pool of creamy milk at the bottom of the cone.

This was the cone of perfect strawberry ice cream that he and his mom had walked twelve blocks south into another neighbourhood to find. Jason had peered into the display case with wonder, looking at all the flavours to choose from in wonder. If someone didn’t already know their favourite flavour, how could they possibly choose?

He knew it was silly to get excited by something as simple as ice cream, even at nine, but he knew that the grin on his face was enormous when he accepted the cone from the man on the other side of the counter, eyes growing larger as he held it in his hands, waiting for his mom to pay for it. This was a five dollar ice cream and it was all for him. It was even in a sprinkled waffle cone. She got a small strawberry cup for herself as well, nowhere near as big, but still as tasty. She led him to one of the tables in the corner of the small shop and they sat in silence, watching the people walk by outside. He was careful not to let any drips fall from the cone and onto the table, not wanting to let any of it go to waste, and to savour every last drop.

Cones were always a race against time, trying to finish it before it melted from the heat of his hands, but taking the time to enjoy it. Before too long, his hands were empty, sticky from the cone. He turned back to smile at his mom, who surprised him by pushing her small bowl of ice cream across the table at him. She hadn’t eaten any of it. Instead she had stuck a small white candle in it, small flame flickering.

“Happy Birthday, Jason.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and blew out the candle.

He wished every day could be like this one.

* * *

Rich people were weird. Jason had decided this long before he had moved in with Bruce, but living in the manor had solidified it. For weeks Bruce had been asking him what he wanted to do for his birthday. Was there a tradition that he wanted to do? Did he want to go on a trip? Was there any specific presents that he wanted?

When Jason had said that he wanted to camping in the backyard, Bruce had blinked at him for a few seconds in confusion.

“Are you sure you don’t want to camp anywhere more exciting, Jay? We could go to one of the parks.”

“Nope. Backyard is good.”

“We always camp in the backyard. We camped out there last week.”

“I like it,” he said before quickly adding, “Can we make the fancy s’mores?”

“You are turning 15 and the most exciting thing that you want to do is put peanut butter cups on graham crackers and marshmallows in the backyard? The backyard that is on the other side of this wall?”

“Yep.”

“Alright. Backyard camping it is,” laughed Bruce softly. “With the fancy s’mores.”

Growing up in the city, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity to see the stars. Despite being so dark, there were too many lights in Gotham, clouds too low and the stars mostly stayed hidden. Out in Bristol though, the houses were few and far between and the stars were out in abundance. He loved lying on his back, staring up at them on nights when the city was quiet and patrol had been cut short. It was extra nice when his belly was full of fire roasted weenies, s’mores and Alfred’s chocolate gateau.

“Jay.” He lifted his head to look at Bruce, still sitting by the fire, light of the flames reflecting in his eyes. “Present time.”

“I told you I didn’t want anything.”

“And I didn’t get you anything.” He pulled two parcels out of his backpack beside him. “Alfred did. And Dick.” Jason highly doubted that Dick got him a present and assumed the Alfred had forged his name, but the small card on the packaging wasn’t actuallyfor Jason which peaked his interest. It was for Robin, from Nightwing.

Tearing off the wrapping, he turned the gift over in his hands carefully before looking at Bruce. “Nunchucks?” Bruce looked almost as surprised as Jason was. He held out his hand and Jason passed them to him. Bruce turned them over carefully in his hands and examined them closely before handing them back.

“Those look like authentic hand crafted nunchaku.”

“Can you teach me? How to use them properly?”

“I can, but Dick would be a better teacher for those, which may be the point of that gift.” Jason raised an eyebrow and Bruce’s lips quirked up, almost in a smile but not quite. It was the same look Batman got when Robin did something impressive in the field. “I’m competent with them. He is an expert.”

Jason looked down at the sticks again, thoughts whirling around in his brain. What did it mean? “He doesn’t even like me.”

“He doesn’t not like you. He’s angry with me and there is a difference.” This time Bruce did smile, and he reached over to give Jason’s shoulder a light squeeze. “I think this might be a sign that he might like to get to know you better.”

Jason’s hands started to shake the more that he thought about it, and he quickly put the nunchucks to the side and started to unwrap the second gift just to cover up the reaction.

Alfred’s card gave nothing away, simply wishing Jason a happy birthday in perfect cursive. The box was small and flat and when the wrapping was removed it, the box was velvet. Jason opened the box and immediately closed it again, which made Bruce stare at him strangely. Jason swallowed, and opened the box slower, prepared for what was inside. 

“It’s a pocket watch.” Jason whispered. He had never seen one before he had moved to the manor. Not until he had seen Alfred remove it from the pocket of his waistcoat to check the time and he had been transfixed with the idea. He lifted it out of the box carefully and held it up, engraving catching his eye in the light. “It has my initials on it.”

J.P.T.W

“Looks like we may have a matching pair. Alfred got me one as well when I was 17.” Bruce leaned back to look at the stars. “He said that every proper young man needed a proper watch. It’s a Pennyworth family tradition.”

“I can’t accept this, Bruce. It’s too much.” How could he accept something this extravagant? People like him didn’t have pocket watches. People like him barely had regular watches.

“It’s a gift. Do you really want to try and give it back to Alfred?”

Jason ran his thumb over for cool silver casing, feeling the engraving and committing it to memory. “No.” He placed the watch back into the velvet box, and closed it carefully, before putting it carefully into his bag for safekeeping. Being Robin was one thing. Being included as Wayne was something harder. Jason didn’t know how to process Alfred’s apparently inclusion of him into being a Pennyworth. 

“Hey.” Bruce held out another s’more that he had somehow managed to put a candle in, held in place by an extra marshmallow. How long had Jason been sitting and thinking about the watch if he hadn’t known Bruce was making another fancy s’more. “Happy Birthday, Jaylad.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and blew out the candle.

He wished every day could be like this one.

* * *

This entire situation was fucking insane.

Over his two lifetimes, Jason had seen a lot of things. Done a lot of things; good and bad. Continued to defy the odds and expectations. Not once had he ever imagine this; never in his wildest dreams would he have expected to be in space. And not just Watchtower space.

_Space_ Space. With unknown constellations and planets surrounding him, in a spaceship, trying to outrace a bunch of little green men, none of whom were actually green or little or possibly even men, who were definitely trying to kill them because the three of them had maybe taken something that didn’t legally belong to them.

Jason wasn’t sure if Finder’s Keepers, Loser’s Weepers was a saying on other planets, but they couldn’t exactly stop to ask without their ship being blown to tiny pieces.

To be fair, the Tamaranean crystal Roy had pocketed didn’t technically belong to the Roglodites either, so Jason wasn’t sure why they were so mad about it. It’s not like they were using it for anything anyway, and with Kori on board, they had more of a claim to it.

At least that was the logic he was sticking to.

Any now they found themselves being chased by two larger ships that were firing at them, fortunately with not great aim, but they were being gained on.

“Starfire! Does this ship have a warp drive?” shouted Roy over the alarms that the ship was sounding around them.

“I do not know what you are talking about!”

“Warp drive! You know! To go super-fast and jump to a faraway place where these jerks can’t find us?”

“That is not a real thing, Roy,” snapped Kori, eyes focused on the panels in front of her. “And you should not have stolen the crystal.”

“All sci fi movies have them! Your ship has to have one!” Roy shot back. “And it’s your people’s crystal! It should be with you.”

“You are believing human science fiction entertainment over my knowledge of my own ship and how space travel works?”

“Don’t answer that,” Jason slapped his hand over Roy’s mouth to stop the words in their tracks. “and stop mansplaining how space works to Kori.” His hand was suddenly wet and he pulled it away quickly. “Gross! Did you just lick me?”

“Maybe.”

“Can the two of you stop being children and do something useful?” Kori flipped some switches that seemed to up their speed, but not enough to lose the ships behind them. “Even if warp drives were real, how would they help? If I had a warp drive, they would have a warp drive and we wouldn’t get any farther away. Ridiculous.”

“Would an asteroid field help?” Jason pointed to something on the screen in front of them that they were quickly approaching. “Your ship is smaller than theirs. Maybe we could sneak through where they can’t fit?”

Kori bit her lip as she looked at the monitors. “It may be our only chance.” The field was large, but the debris looked small and close together. It would be tough even for the most experienced of pilots. Jason was glad he wasn’t the one flying. “Roy, take the back weapons in case any manage to follow and buckle up.”

“We are in space, running from angry aliens. How will buckling up help?” said Roy as he strapped himself, Jason taking the seat next to him and doing the same.

“It will keep you in your chair. Now be quiet!”

It was astounding how quickly things could go from ‘holy crap we are going to die’ to ‘how on earth did we pull that off’ when Kori managed to get them through the field with minimal damage to the ship, and Jason had been right; the other ships were too large to chance following them through and they were in the clear.

“Kori, you are my hero.”

“Was I not already?”

“Yeah, but that solidified you into the top spot for eternity.” Jason slumped back into his chair, closing his eyes as he felt the tension drain from his body. “Thank you for not letting me die again on my birthday.”

“Jason Todd.”

“Yeah?”

“You did not tell us that it was your birthday.” Kori sounded upset that she hadn’t known. Jason felt a little bad because he knew how much she liked to celebrate the people in her life.

“Oh. Well, it is.” He cracked his eyes open a little and smiled at her “I’m 21. Or 20 if you don’t count the year I was dead, but personally I go by year of birth.” He closed his eyes again, and heard Roy shuffling around in the one of the cabinets beneath the consol. He may have drifted off to sleep until he was jerked away by the sound of a cup being put down beside him. Roy had placed a suspicious looking glass beside him, amber liquid reflecting off the lights of the control panel.

“What is that?”

“Whiskey.”

“And why is it on the ship?” He didn’t want to make it sound like an accusation, but as far as he and Kori were aware, there wasn’t any alcohol on the ship.

“Maybe don’t ask too many questions about that today.”

“Roy.”

“Don’t. Not today.” He nudged the glass closer to him. “It’s for you. You’re legal.”

“Very little of what I do is legal.”

“Shut up and have your drink. This too.” Roy placed a chocolate chip cookie in front of him with large wax candle on top, almost double in radius of the cookie.

“No flame?”

“Not in space, dingus,” said Roy, but Kori leaned around him from behind with a lighter and lit the candle. Roy spun around and glared at her. “What? You don’t have a warp drive but you can have open flame? That is ridiculous.”

“Why would there be candles on board if we could not use them?”

“I hate space.”

Jason grinned, laughing at his two best friends arguing about space, after being chased by aliens and totally not dying. “I don’t know. I think it’s pretty cool.”

Two pairs of arms wrapped around him. “Happy Birthday, Jay.”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and blew out the candle.

He wished every day could be like this one.

* * *

Except for the summer thunderstorm hammering away outside his apartment, it had been a quiet day and Jason had quite enjoyed having the time for himself. Power had been knocked out on his block, but it was nothing that a few candles around the living room couldn’t fix, as he curled up on his couch with a well worn copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide, two fingers of whiskey on the table beside him and a bowl of strawberry ice cream in his lap, listening to the rain as it pelted against the window.

He was overdressed for what seemed like a relaxing afternoon in, with his deep burgundy waistcoat and Tom Ford suit, but he was killing time before his ride got there to pick him up for what he had been told was charity benefit at the manor, but what in reality was a surprise birthday party that Dick had ‘accidentally-but-on-purpose’ spilled the beans on knowing that Jason didn’t typically react well to having people jump out of him in the dark, no matter how much he cared about the people doing the surprising.

If someone had asked him as a child what his 25th birthday would be like, he wouldn’t have had an answer. It wouldn’t have been a black tie dinner with his friends and family at Bruce Wayne’s house, that was for sure. There had been a time, many times, when he would have thought that seeing 25 would have been impossible, but here he was. Quarter of a century old. He had taken the rocky road to get there, but he couldn’t be happier.

His thoughts were interrupted by a honk down on the street, and Jason double checked the time before sliding the pocket watch back into his waistcoat. He slipped his jacket on, knowing that it was Tim waiting for him, punctual as always. He carefully blew out each of the candles, before picking up his glass and bowl and leaving them in the kitchen sink.

Jason paused beside his front down after putting his shoes on and gazed around his apartment one last time. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and blew out the final candle by his door, leaving his apartment in darkness, only light coming in through the windows.

He wished every day could be like this one.


End file.
